Military Containment

As we break into daylight, we find we're not alone: There's a couple tanks working their way around the perimeter of the darkness, and some military vehicles… APCs, I think they're called?... disgorging army soldiers. We're invisible to everyone else, but the giant hole we make in the shadow is very easy to see. Considering, I shrug, make myself visible, and land in front of one of the soldiers.

“Hi, who's running the show?”

The soldier immediately points his weapon at me, amd pauses as the magic I carry takes hold, “Ma'am, you're not supposed to be here. How'd you get past the perimeter? Oh, and on the ground hands on your head, please. I'm required to arrest you or shoot you.”

I shake my head, “Here, let's make the situation clearer…” I use the Telekinesis Sphere to pull the **** rifle out of his hands, point it at myself, and pull the trigger until it's empty, the bullets all vanishing in puffs of harmless light. I then put it back in his hands, and try again over the ringing in our ears: “So, you've met requirements now. I'd like to talk to whoever is in charge, and that's very much not you, hmm?”

“Yes ma'am…” he presses a button and starts talking into his headset as he reloads, “Control, this is Scout Alpha Bravo Niner, I have an anomaly asking to talk to the commander, over.” He then releases the button.

He's using a bone conduction headset to listen, but I have really good hearing, “Scout Alpha Bravo Niner, this is Control, what is the nature of the anomaly? Over.”

“‘The nature of the anomaly’ is mildly annoyed at the moment,” I interject, “and yes, I can hear that.”

“Intelligent, cognizant, conversational, very bullet resistant, able to hear you, and mildly annoyed. Over.”

“How do you know the bullet resistant part? Over.”

“She pulled my weapon from my hands, emptied the clip into her own chest, and gave it back to me. Over.”

“Despite appearances, I'm male,” I interrupt again.

“Yes sir,” the soldier nods.

“Please repeat, over,” cackles from his radio.

“I need to amend my statement anyway: HE pulled my weapon from my hands, emptied the clip into HIS chest, then gave my weapon back to me. Over.”

There's silence for a while, then, “Send your coordinates, soldier, the commander will be with you shortly. Over.”

“Yes sir, I'm at…” he reads off the GPS coordinates, “Over and out.”

“Confirmed, those match your transponder. Over and out.”

The soldier stands at parade rest, and speaks to me, “Sir, the commander…”

“Will be here shortly, I heard,” I smile, “Thank you.”

“Yea sir,” the soldier nods.

I check my notices while I wait… oh, the bastard was worth a rather lot of experience, even split four ways: I'll need to level up when I have time. I set up a minion to handle cleaning up the darkness while I wait, granting myself the appropriate Spheres talents to make a Conjuration Companion with a sufficient Magic Skill Bonus to have a chance of dispelling the darkness, plus the supporting talents to be capable of it.

True to his word by proxy, an older guy with a commander's rank insignia on his body armor rolls up as the passenger in an army jeep within minutes. He gets out when he stops, and goes straight to the soldier, “So where's this talking anomaly?"

“Over here Commander Zarwinsky ” I speak up, reading his last name off his uniform.

The man looks at me with his brown eyes… and I watch as some of the effects I carry take hold, “Ah, ma'am, this is a restricted area, possibly a war zone, you're not supposed to be here. Do you maybe need a lift outside the perimeter?”

“First, I'm male,” I settle on an approach as I speak, “I'm on cleanup duty at the moment, and am very much supposed to be here. That void behind me is the result of a mass **** who evaded justice until about ten minutes ago. He's dead now, but that thing behind me is an environmental disaster waiting to happen if we leave it, so we're going to clean it up. Hold a bit, please…” I cast the summon, tacking on Invisible Spell while I'm at it, mentally give the order, and continue, “...now, then: I'm stuck with first contact duty too. Who do I need to talk to about the diplomatic garbage? Setting up an embassy and whatnot?”

The commander blinks, “I can certainly run it up the chain of command, but when presenting it to my superiors I'll need…” he trails off, because my minion successfully nukes the void on the second try, and now I'm standing in front of a sun-drenched crater.

I lift my legs up off the ground, and hover via a running Fly spell, “I am somewhat curious what evidence you need to confirm to your superiors that I'm legitimate. I can probably provide something suitable.”

Meanwhile, Tina waves her hand in front of the commander's face. “Why isn't he reacting to me?”

“I kind of wondered that too…” Alice frowns.

“That kind of thing will do,” the commander nods. “If you will please accompany me?”

I reply telepathically to my friends as I join the commander in the jeep, ‘One of the spells I applied lets me choose who can and can't detect you reasonably freely. I can see you, you can see each other, but you could stab him and he wouldn't notice until he started getting faint from the blood loss.’ Suppression can work on Touch, too, and gets particularly nasty, ‘I can turn it off… maybe head back to the house, I'll meet you there to remove it when I have a few spare minutes from dealing with these guys?’

“Yeah, sure…” Adam replies verbally, “...but we could have just left. Why are you going through the hoops?”

‘So you can walk around without needing to disguise yourselves,’ I answer as the jeep takes me away.